In June 2024, the very first Baltic B2B marketing awards, the Golden Parrots were handed out. Considered by the judges as one of the categories with very fierce competition, it took hard numbers for Combat Ready to dip the scale towards a win in the lead generation category. Combat Ready was a standout due to its clear strategy, impressive results, and transparent reporting.
Region: Estonia
Award category: Golden Parrot for Lead Generation Campaign (2024)
Background
Combat Ready is a leadership consulting and training company based in Estonia, established two years ago. The company offers a variety of services ranging from brief, 30-minute motivational speeches to extensive, multi-month training programmes. Their most sought-after service is a practical 1.5-day-long training session designed for teams of 10 to 150 participants. Uniquely, all Combat Ready’s programmes are rooted in the instructors’ extensive experience in the Estonian Defence Forces, as well as the leadership principles taught by Jocko Willink.
Despite a crowded market for leadership training in Estonia, Combat Ready differentiates itself through its military and combat-based experience. The company’s training sessions emphasise practicality and engagement, avoiding the traditional classroom setting in favour of discussions, role plays, and field-based scenario exercises.
In the wake of economic challenges that many companies faced, Combat Ready saw the opportunity to address issues of leadership, communication, teamwork, and ownership, which had become particularly apparent under stress. However, recognising the sensitivity around directly addressing these issues, Combat Ready adopted a gradual, trust-building approach to avoid triggering defensive reactions among potential clients.
Prior to their award-winning campaign, Combat Ready’s marketing efforts relied heavily on inbound leads generated through media exposure and participation at various events. This strategy resulted in an unpredictable sales pipeline, prompting the company to seek a more consistent and proactive approach to lead generation.
The Goal
The primary objective was to establish a stable source of high-quality leads aligned with their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and buying centre.
A lead was defined as a person from the buying centre who expressed interest or consented to a meeting. Given the nature of Combat Ready's services, no specific meeting quota was initially set.
The Strategy
Targeting in small markets
Combat Ready began its campaign by defining its Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and understanding the structure of the buying centre. The ICP was identified as companies in Estonia with 15 to 5,000 employees and a start-up-like, innovative culture, indicating a willingness to explore new methods and ideas.
The buying centre consisted of various roles:
Decision-maker: CEO or (co-)founder
Initiators: upper-level HR personnel or individuals responsible for employee training and development
Influencers or Champions: middle management, often team leads
When asked about the rather wide targeting range, B2B Growth founder Indrek Põldvee emphasised the limitations that come with small markets: "Combat Ready’s target group is wide, because the Estonian market is very poor in this sense. People run out quickly here — we were able to add most of the decision makers with active profiles in eight, nine months."
They focused on targeting active professionals on LinkedIn, particularly CEOs and HR leaders. The initial outreach was conducted using the LinkedIn profile of Combat Ready’s founder, Remo Ojaste, with plans to expand to additional profiles and email outreach depending on the campaign's success. Consequently, both were added.
Filtering out suitable prospects
To optimise their LinkedIn efforts, B2B Growth conducted internal training sessions for Combat Ready employees on profile optimisation and trust-building with prospects.
Indrek acknowledges using automation tools for network growth, but urges to outmost caution: "For LinkedIn it's a grey area, you have to know how to use these tools. I know people whose accounts have been blocked due to them using automation tools."
The filtering process involved meticulously building and refining prospect lists, ensuring that no existing clients or active prospects were included. The lists were segmented based on job titles, functions, company sizes, and other relevant criteria, and were constantly cleaned to remove false results.
"We started by filtering out CEOs of companies that fit our size profile. The second filter was for LinkedIn to show people who have posted something in the last thirty days. If we had a thousand profiles initially, then usually about seven hundred drop out. From the remaining three hundred, we added those most active on LinkedIn, as they are most likely to bring faster results," describes Indrek the many steps they took to filter out suitable prospects.
A/B testing the messaging
A key aspect of the strategy was A/B testing various outreach messages and approaches to determine the most effective tactics. Personalised messages were crafted based on insights gathered from individual profiles, with careful monitoring of acceptance rates to identify successful messaging.
"Since we created very personalised messages, we had to test which messages had the highest acceptance rate. We tested two different messages: one had 17 percent and the second 27 (a significant difference!). Also, the service is quite new in the market, we had no prior benchmark," explains Indrek when asked about the reasoning behind running A/B tests with such little data.
Example of a connection request message used on LinkedIn for HRs during the beginning of the year:
“Tere, {eesnimi}
Kas teil on alanud aastaks juba koolitusplaan olemas? Kui jah, siis kui palju rõhku on juhtimisel, kommunikeerimisel ja vastutuse võtmisel?
Küsin, sest tean, kui paljudel ettevõtetel on rasked ajad olnud ning stressi tõttu on murekohad juhtimises ja meeskonnatöös hakanud välja paistma.”
“Hi {first name}
Have you already created an employee T&D plan for the year? If so, how much focus is on leadership, communication, and taking ownership?
I'm asking because I know many companies have faced tough times recently, and due to stress, the cracks in leadership and teamwork have started to show.”
Outreach was timed to coincide with key planning periods for HR professionals, such as the end-of-year review and planning for the next year’s employee development plans. Providing value and not sounding too sales pitchy was the goal with all audiences. Each sequence also included 3-4 follow-ups to stay on top of the mind of the prospect.
Building a stealthy infrastructure
For setting up the infrastructure, they made sure not to damage the reputation of Combat Ready's LinkedIn accounts and that emails wouldn’t land in spam nor harm the domain. To counter that, they stayed within LinkedIn accounts’ limits and for email, bought alternative domains and set up domains’ infrastructure for maximum deliverability.
To ensure no leads went missing, webhooks were set up to automatically add new leads into their CRM (Pipedrive), verifying against existing data to update records or create new entries as needed.
Video of how to automatically add leads to Pipedrive (B2B Growth)
Finally, leads do not automatically convert to sales. Proper systems for lead management are essential. "The company needs to have proper systems for lead management – follow ups and people who do them regularly. If leads are brought in, someone has to talk to them, because they have yet to be converted to sales," adds Indrek.
Results
From 28.10.23 - 15.05.24, Remo Ojaste’s LinkedIn profile gained 262 new connections (31.8% average acceptance rate) within the target audience and 37 meetings
From 02.12.23 - 15.05.24, Priit Lilleväli's LinkedIn profile gained 190 new connections (36.2% average acceptance rate) within the target audience and 12 meetings
From 16.01.23 - 15.04.24, the email campaigns generated 40 meetings
Out of the 89 meetings in total, 17 were booked directly with CEOs and (co-)founders, 4 with team leads and the remaining 68 with upper-level HRs
The estimated added pipeline value, based on Combat Ready’s average Lifetime Value (LTV) and closing percentage, amounted to €441.4k, nearly equalling the company’s entire revenue for the previous year.
As of May 2024, approximately €65k worth of training sessions had already been delivered, with many more deals expected to close in the summer, given the seasonal nature of Combat Ready’s outdoor training sessions. Additionally, 32 prospects expressed interest but requested to be contacted at a later date.
The longevity aspect was something Indrek wanted to emphasise separately: "All things take longer than expected: we brought in leads/meetings, but most deals won't be realised until fall and next spring. Companies plan larger expenses 9-12 months in advance, this must be taken into account."
Lessons
Combat Ready was a very clear entry with clear results, funnels and all creatives attached. For me, it was a huge yes!
— Golden Parrot Awards 2024 jury member
Company profile vs personal LinkedIn profile
When considering whether to focus on a company profile or a personal LinkedIn profile, the goal dictates the means. For smaller companies, using a company account for lead generation is often not worthwhile due to the high costs and long timeline required to see results.
Indrek explains: "If we take Combat Ready, who has been operating on the Estonian market for two years, does not have that much capital, then it doesn’t make sense to start building the company's account, but rather to direct this money to building a personal profile."
He further elaborates: "Company accounts are used for employer branding, building trust among cooperation partners and to showcase what is happening across the region. I have usually said that companies with less than forty employees should only invest in a company account if there is money left over."
Making the most out of filters
I really liked that they had hard numbers, solid proof. In terms of the idea, it's not anything new, but the thought process behind it was good and in turn effective.
— Golden Parrot Awards 2024 jury member
This campaign brings to light the importance of using LinkedIn’s filtering tools effectively. When looking for active profiles, Indrek recommends another smart tactic: "Another filter that is very good is to search for people who have changed jobs in the last ninety days. Firstly, since they have switched to a new company, they are most likely to be change-makers. And since they made that update on LinkedIn, it means they’re active."
The long game
Building relationships on LinkedIn takes time and patience. When asked about LinkedIn's superiority to email or the platform's InMail, Indrek believes direct interaction on LinkedIn keeps prospects within a more engaging environment: "It's good to have prospects in your personal network. First of all, you can contact them directly. And secondly, even if they don't interact, but you create regular content, they will start seeing and appreciating that content and will much more likely engage with you directly in the future."
For maintaining a strong presence on LinkedIn, Indrek suggests consistency in posting: "One post a week is very good, but then you have to maintain quality, not quantity. Quality is always more important. I know people who do one post a month and it flies very well. But if you want to be more active, at least once a month or once a week, but no more than five per week."
On the topic of "hacking" the algorithm, he acknowledges some truths but stresses consistency: "I have realised that the algorithm only works if you are consistent. People think that they have to write in a certain way to hack the algorithm. No, you have to consistently post for three months, one post every week, and only then we start talking about the algorithm."
Credentials
Remo Ojaste, CEO and Co-Founder, Combat Ready
Priit Lilleväli, Leadership Instructor & Coach, Combat Ready
Sille Martma, Project Manager, Combat Ready
and all other Combat Ready team members
Indrek Põldvee, Founder, B2B Growth
Risto Pernits, B2B Lead Generator, B2B Growth
© Marketing Parrot OÜ 2024
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